The details were scrappy. Philip, it seemed, hadn’t got very far in his search for his missing son. But then he’d left it for twenty years and waited until he was dying, so it was hardly surprising.
Name: Thomas? Mariner.
God, he wasn’t even certain about the first name. After Mariner he’d added in brackets Samson. Somehow it was very touching, like a young girl practising the signature of her boyfriend’s surname.
Date of birth: c. 22 December 1984. Mother: Kay Mariner of 63 Priory Way, North Shields.
Was that where she was living now? Or where she’d been living twenty years ago?
‘There’s not much to go on.’
He shrugged. ‘Then don’t bother. As I said, let sleeping dogs lie. You get the £10,000 anyway.’
‘Does Joanna know about Thomas?’
‘God, I don’t think so.’ The thought seemed to horrify him. ‘I certainly hope not.’
‘Philip and his wife didn’t have that sort of relationship, then?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They didn’t discuss everything?’
‘Of course not.’ He was scathing. ‘Who does?’
‘How well do you know them?’
‘Well enough.’
He paused, and I thought I’d get nothing more out of him. Despite the late-afternoon sunshine on the tile roofs outside, the room was dark. There was a heavy mahogany cabinet against the wall, the drawers too narrow to contain documents. It held a butterfly collection perhaps. He had the hands of a collector. Or fossils. He would be precise and careful arranging his specimens. The wallpaper was a heavy sludge green, the curtains velvet in a similar but darker shade.
Then Howdon started to talk and I realized he was even more drunk than I’d suspected. Or perhaps it wasn’t the drink. Perhaps he was on the edge of a breakdown. The thoughts seemed to fizz in his head and the words couldn’t quite keep up with them. Perhaps he was haunted by daydreams too.
‘They were a golden couple, Joanna and Philip.’ He looked up at me. ‘Do you know what I mean? Magic. Like something out of a fairy tale. Too good to be true.’ His voice was bitter, as if he meant that literally, as if in his experience no relationship lived up to expectation. ‘I brought them together. Old Stu Howdon playing fairy godmother. What do you make of that?’ He chuckled. It turned into a splutter and then a cough. ‘Philip was a new estate manager at one of the places I look after. He was young, bright, but not the usual public school, county type. He’d been to comprehensive school, taken a degree in agriculture from Newcastle. The only interest he had in gardening then was the plot behind his house. He kept it organic, ferreted about for traditional species, talked about planting an orchard. A hobby, I thought. A good thing. Men need their hobbies to keep them out of mischief.’
Howdon spluttered again. It could have been a laugh.
‘Joanna’s parents had died and she was an only child, left to cope with the house, inheritance tax. They’d run the place down. I did my best for her, helped her through it. At least I thought that I did.’
He stared at the half-drunk tea, which had gone cold in the cup, and I thought, He fancied her, Philip was a rival.
‘The only sensible thing to do was to sell the house and she refused to do that. Too many memories, she said. And she had a responsibility to keep it in the family. She’s passionate about the place.’
‘Did she work?’ I felt weird when I asked the question. Like I’d been in the situation before but now the roles were reversed. This time I was the shrink and he was a patient.
‘Mm?’ He looked up.
‘She was young, unattached. I presume she could earn her own living.’
‘She was a photographer. Not weddings and kiddies’ portraits. She’d probably have made more out of that. It was more arty stuff. Black and white. Landscapes. She had exhibitions. Some of her pictures went into books.’ He paused again. ‘She talked about developing the house as a country hotel. It might have worked. She had the drive and the spirit, plenty of the right sort of contacts. Then she met Philip and the idea was abandoned. The old place is still falling down.’
‘You introduced them?’
‘At the county show. You know what that’s like. You bump into half the people you’ve ever met in the world, everyone you went to school with at least. Philip was there on behalf of the estate, Joanna was taking pictures for a glossy magazine. I introduced them, then got caught up with some old bore of a farmer. When I went to find them half an hour later they were sharing a bottle of fizz and a bowl of strawberries, and I didn’t like to interrupt. It only took six months for them to marry. She asked me to give her away.’
Poor, sad bastard. I almost felt sorry for him.
‘They brought out a book together – traditional gardens in the north of England. She took the pictures, he did the text. When no one would publish it, they brought it out themselves, hawked it round all the local bookshops, took it down to London. One of those daytime television programmes got interested. They were an attractive couple and Philip stirred up a bit of controversy knocking contemporary designers. He said their gardens were too sculptural, too minimalist. He liked a landscape that was extravagant and overblown, overcrowded even. The programme challenged him to design a place somewhere in East Anglia. He did. Everyone raved about it. After that he never looked back. Like I said, the golden touch.’
Until he got cancer, I thought, remembering the envy of the rugby player back at Wintrylaw.
‘You stayed friends?’
‘Marjorie and I had them round for dinner occasionally. We went there. To make up the numbers, provide local colour when their London friends were visiting. If I met him at the rugby club, we’d have a few beers. He never mentioned a son, if that’s what you mean. We weren’t on those terms.’
‘Why didn’t he look for the boy before?’ It came out as a wail, pathetic and desperate.
Howdon looked at me uncertainly. Mad cow, he was thinking. ‘Why would he? Lovely wife. Two children. Why would he rock the boat? Later there was guilt, I suppose. He knew he was dying and wanted to get his affairs in order.’
I sat there wondering how Philip could have messed with me like this. How could he be so dumb? Would I like my father to come looking for me? Of course I would. It was what I fantasized about when I lay awake in the early mornings. Someone making the effort to find me. But I didn’t need this. Christ, I was screwed up enough already. I didn’t care about Thomas. Really, I didn’t. But even as I was thinking that, I had the picture of another boy in my head. Not Thomas but Nicky.
‘I don’t think I’m the right person to do this,’ I said evenly.
‘Philip thought you were absolutely the right person. You read what he said.’ He returned the paper to the envelope as if he didn’t care one way or the other what I decided.
I intended to turn him down, to tell him where to stick his money. Then I thought what I could do with £15,000. I could kit up the empty room in Sea View with a computer, a phone line and a fax. It would buy me time to decide what to do next. Only rich people have the luxury of not taking cash into consideration. And it wouldn’t be like being paid for sex, would it? It would be a legitimate business deal.
We sat for a moment in silence, staring at each other. I was still thinking I could just walk away. Then Howdon reached down, pulled open a drawer in his desk and took out a brown padded envelope. I could tell from the way he lifted it that it was heavy. He pushed it across the desk to me. It hadn’t been sealed and it was full of £50 notes.